China may extend eased reporting rules past Games

BEIJING, Dec 27 (Reuters) - China is likely to extend beyond the 2008 Olympics regulations that were aimed at easing restrictions on foreign reporters during the period of the Games, officials said on Thursday.

From Jan. 1, 2007, China has allowed foreign reporters to travel and report more freely across most of the country, lifting restrictions that required journalists to seek government permission to report outside their base city.

"No document says that when this new regulation expires on Oct. 17 next year we are going to return to the previous regulations," Cai Wu, Minister of the State Council Information Office, told a news conference.

"If practices show that it will help the international community know better about China and it is in the interests of China's efforts of reform and opening up, it is not at all necessary for us to change a good policy."

Media restrictions are one of several issues being raised in relation to the Games by human rights groups, which say the International Olympic Committee must push China harder to improve its rights record and allow greater press freedoms. b China remains the world's leading jailer of journalists and writers, the Committee to Protect Journalists says, adding that detentions, censorship and harassment of Chinese journalists stifle the country's domestic media.

Although the regulations have improved access for foreign journalists to China's vast countryside, reporters are still at times harassed and even detained by local authorities who flout the rules or say they are not aware of them.

Cai said the government recognised that there was a need for more training at the local levels, especially for those officials who have had few opportunities to engage with foreign media.

"They need to fully recognise that this regulation fully meets the needs of China in advancing reform and opening up and that it is in China's interests," Cai said.

He also acknowledged that the government's system of appointing spokespeople for major ministries and departments -- a watershed in a country where even basic information is often guarded as a state secret -- was imperfect.

Most were not dedicated spokespeople but policy experts inexperienced in dealing with the media, he said.

"These spokesmen are good at their own work and they are well-grounded in policy, but they may not have a well-grounded knowledge about media or communications," Cai said.

"Some of them are not good at communicating with the media."

(Editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)